To start off, if you are not aware, Austria has a sort of hybrid of a social medicine system.  I think that a straight up social medicine system is where the doctors are paid by the system and this makes it so that the doctors get paid by the socialized medical insurance company this usually being a government run agency.  This allows the individual the peace of mind of knowing that they can walk into any doctor’s office and get the care that they need.  Now obviously this has advantages and disadvantages.  Austria has such a system in which there is socialized medicine, in our case run by the WGKK, Wiener Gebieten Kranken Kasse, or Viennese Health Insurance Company.  WGKK issues eCards to anyone that is legally employed in Austria and that means that all normal health care is covered.  This means that any sickness is something we can at least go to the doctor for as long as they take eCard.

Austria also has  some doctors that are only for private patients, usually catering to the international clientele that have private insurance companies.  This is what we used to have when we were covered by RCE’s insurance.  Now we are fully on eCard which means that we have all of our basic needs covered if we decide to go to your average everyday, run-of-the-mill doctor.  Since we need one that will speak ENglish our choices ae much slimmer as most doctors, though they almost certainly have a working knowledge of English, do not always have the desire to take English-speaking patients, so that is always a concern seeing as how our German is not that great.

Now that we have had our second child and had both of our little boys in the hospital all on eCard, the Socialized medicine system, I can say, without a doubt, that Austria has a great system for health care.  That doesn’t mean that there can’t be problems with it, but every time we have needed care it has been first rate.

One big difference I have found is the whole mindset about whether or not to call an ambulance or not for certain things.  In the States . . . one wouldn’t even think of calling an ambulance unless you are unconscious and even then some people might wait until they regain consciousness to decide knowing full well that the charges for the short ride to the nearest hospital would be astronomical and most likely not covered on insurance.  Here on the other hand, it is pretty much assumed that you call the ambulance if you have an urgent health need at any hour.  Most likely, once the paramedics arrive you will be taken to the hospital to be checked up.  If the problem is bad enough you may be admitted at once for an over night stay or a week long stay.  We experienced the peace of mind that this provides when Tobi and Izaak both woke in the middle of the night exactly a week apart with severe breathing/asthmatic symptoms.

In Tobi’s case the paramedics took me and Tobi to the nearest hospital all courtesy of eCard.  Upon arrival a doctor looked at him and released us in about an hour.  In Izaak’s case, a week later, he was admitted so that the doctors could keep an eye on him due to his being barely 3 weeks old at the time .  In both cases we were not made to feel bad for calling the paramedics and were even told that we had done the right thing.  In both cases, eCard covered EVERYTHING . . . we haven’t paid a cent out of pocket.  The monthly “premium” comes out of our “paycheck” every month and that covers our whole family.

That about sums up our experience with socialized medicine.  Tobi was in the hospital in Czech for a week a while back and that was a TOTALLY different story that I will leave for another time.  Hope you’ve enjoyed this little bit of our socialist life!:)

Vitali has been very gracious and has offered us an original painting to auction off as a fundraiser.  I have basically been in touch with Vitali and his wife Svetlana to make sure that our school’s and their expectations are met.  I am very excited about this event and it has been amazing to see it come to fruition.

Thinking inot the future, if this goes well, we will hopefully try to do other such events to raise needed funds for our school.  I am very excited about being a part of this effort.

If you’d like to see more about the event see the Austrian Times article and if you’d like to see more of Vitali’s artwork just visit his website at: http://www.komarovart.com

Your continued prayers as we continue to organize this would be greatly appreciated and if you have any ideas or know any artist for future ICSV supporting exhibits please let me know!:)

Brian

While it is said that March sometimes comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb . . . we would say that 2010 went out like a lamb and came in like one as well.  The past few weeks have been really interesting in the sense that we have been so busy with things connected to Izaak’s birth that both the celebration of Christmas AND New Year’s were affected.  I told Bety last night that in some ways I feel like we did not celebrate, but then again what better way to celebrate a new year than to receive a new son!:)  Izaak is a real blessing to us.  He only seems to want to voice his opinion when he is either hungry, needs to burp or needs a diaper change.  Even then, it isn’t more than a quiet squeek to let us know that things are not as they should be.  He is a joy.

Tobi seems to be taking this new adjustment fairly well.   We have been warned ahead of time that we need to be on the watch for him doing things to his newborn baby brother . . . but so far we leave the room for a minute to come back to such dangerous things as Tboi kissing Izaak’s head, and Tobi trying to play with trains with Izaak.  One can tell watching these two that they will get along great when they are older.  Tobi is in dire need of a playmate . . . he was trying to bulldoze Izaak the other day . . . thankfully Izaak was sleeping on his little rocker bed and Tobi pushed the whole bed, not even waking Izaak.

All-in-all I am extremely blessed to be in ministry where I am.  ICSV has been great about letting me have some time at home to help Bety fully recover before going back to school and being gone all day.  January 10-14th I will have “Paternity leave” and will be at home with Bety.  We may be visiting the offices in Vienna making sure that our son is documented where he needs to be.  This will require us visiting 2 embassies/counsolates and at least 2 individual Austrian offices.  Granted all of this running around for paperwork does result in our receiving the “familienbeihilfe”, and “Kinderbetreungsgeld” two financial ways that the social system here in Austria helps us due to the fact that my wife is an EU citizen and consequently our sons are too.  so, this year os promising to be one of improvements and we look forward to all that our Lord has in store for us this year.  We are also very much looking forward to how He will choose to use us this year in the ministry at ICSV.

We are very thankful for your continued prayer and financial support, without both of those we would cease to be affective here in Austria.

The Reynolds: Brian, Bety, Tobi and Izaak

We are so excited!:)

On another note, our December Newsletter was mailed out a while ago and is now available for download in the left-hand column from box.net.  Feel free to download it, but if you would like to be added to our monthly newsletter list just let me know then you’ll get the Newsletter hot off the press.

Bless you guys!:)

Brian for the three of us.

http://artistbrian.wordpress.com

If you have any ideas of how I could improve the blog, just let me know.  I can always use the feedback.  Bless you guys!

Brian

http://theviennawilsons.net/2010/11/thanksgiving-par-tay-christmas.html?spref=fb

I just wanted to post a quick entry to let you know that there are many ways now that you can send financial support our way towards the end of this calendar year.  One is the traditional, write a check with our missionary number on it and send it to RCE, the second is to go to the RCE International website and pay via paypal directly from the website.  This is totally safe and is a new way that you can help support us.

I would also like to add that you can easily download and print out our EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) form and our commitment card from the “Box.net” in the upper right hand corner.  Just print them out fill them out and send them to RCE.  The EFT form is if you would like to become a monthly supporter and don’t want to have to remember to send a check each month.  The commitment card is just for us to keep a record of what you are committing to donating towards our ministry.

We do hope that each and every one of you are experiencing our Lord’s grace anew this day.

Blessings from Wien,

Brian for the 4 of us!

WOW!  Our school really IS international and our lunch hours could be considered international cuisine lunches!:)  God is so great that He brought us all together in Vienna for this time!

Brian

In September you may remember our posting that we had to pay a 1,380 Euro bill for the left over taxes from 2009 and then the extra for 201o, well, apparently we owe 321 more Euro for this quarter of 2010, that makes the grand total  taxes for 2010 total 1,278.90 Euros/$1,767.36 US.  This is all expected from a missionary family of soon-to-be-four living off of $1800 a month, roughly $21,000 yearly.  Not to be complaining or saying that the Lord isn’t providing, but we really don’t have the money for this next bill that is due November 15th!  Please pray for us throughout this as it is REALLY frustrating to be slammed with yet another financial tax financial cost that was not budgeted and we certainly were not ready for it.  Our human minds want to try to explain it away, that it was our error that we didn’t gather all the details that we should have or that we weren’t told about having to pay more . . . the fact remains that we will need to pay it and we have zero extra funds to do so with.  Very disheartening stuff.

That all being said, I have been wrestling with alot of this financial stuff lately.  The way it worked in the States was that taxes were withheld by the employer and then you had some money with which to pay taxes . . . in our case the entire burden lies with us.  We are still trying to work things out but we covet your prayers and continued financial support through all of this.  We pray for you guys often and hope that this post doesn’t seem whiny, but rather, hopeful . . . hopeful that we are suffering here as Christ would suffer.  I am sure that he would be scraping to make ends meet . . . my only wish is that I would have the peace that Jesus had while on this earth.    Bless you guys.

Brian